


In the Spirit of the Season

by justheretobreakthings



Series: Voltron Events [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Pidge | Katie Holt is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-30 16:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17227796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justheretobreakthings/pseuds/justheretobreakthings
Summary: Christmas at the Castle of Lions couldn't have come at a worse time, what with Shiro still being missing after Voltron's battle with Zarkon. Pidge, however, is determined to ensure that Keith manages to get into the holiday spirit.





	1. Chapter 1

“… And if you have good behavior throughout the year, the dude breaks into your house, eats your food, and leaves a bunch of gifts under the tree I mentioned earlier,” Lance explained to a raptly-attentive Coran and Allura. “And you behave badly, he still breaks in and eats your food, but he leaves these magic rocks that you can set on fire and use to cook things. Or in some countries, his co-worker comes in and eats you. But mostly he leaves gifts, and then in the morning, everybody opens their gifts, and once that’s done everyone gathers for a big meal, and then they all take a nap. And that’s Christmas.”

“Fascinating,” Allura said. “So, what does this bearded man have to do with the miracle baby from the start of the story?”

“Well, uh…” Lance hesitated. “Hey Pidge, how are Santa and Jesus connected?”

“Santa Claus is based on the historical Saint Nicholas, a Christian bishop of Myra in the Roman Empire,” Pidge explained, adjusting her glasses. “He had a reputation of generosity among Christians and his name was his preserved after the building of the Church of Saint Nicholas in Myra under Eastern Emperor Theodosius the Second following the - ”

“Basically, people who worship the miracle baby were also big fans of the bearded man,” Lance summed up for the Alteans.

“How do you know so much about Santa, Pidge?” Hunk asked. “I thought you were Jewish.”

“Mom’s side of the family is Jewish,” Pidge corrected him. “Dad’s side is Christian. We actually celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah back at home.”

“So, two different gift-giving holidays right in row?”

“Yep. Most wonderful time of the year. And besides, the Santa myth is pretty secular nowadays. You don’t have to be religious to know it.”

“Regarding Santa,” Coran interrupted, turning to Lance. “This ‘Secret Santa’ event you proposed. Are you meaning that we must become the bearded man ourselves and hide this identity in order to break into each other’s quarters and leave gifts?”

“Symbolically,” Lance said with a nod. He tapped the bowl he’d set down in the middle of the table, which had led to his long and mostly accurate explanation of the Christmas season to the curious Alteans. “See, what I’ve done is, I’ve written everyone’s names down on pieces of paper and put them all in this bowl. And we’re each going to draw one name out of the bowl. The name of the person you draw is the person you have to make a present for. And then on Christmas, which Hunk estimated will be in about… a movement?” He looked to Hunk for confirmation, and the latter nodded. “In about one movement, you’ll give your gift to them.” He lifted the bowl and shook it. “Who wants to go first?”

Allura reached out and took a paper from the dish. Her face turned pensive after she unfolded it and she re-read the name several times before nodding and folding it back up.

Coran went next, and his eyes lit up in delight when he read the name on his paper.

“If you pick your own name,” Lance said, “You have to put it back and pick a new one.”

Coran’s beaming expression dropped to a frown in an instant, but he reluctantly set the paper back in the bowl and drew another one.

The bowl went around the table, each of the paladins picking a name. Pidge unfolded hers -  _‘Allura’_  the paper said - before sliding the bowl over to Lance to finish its lap around the table. “Hang on,” Lance said as he took his paper, “There’s still one in - goddamnit, where’s Keith?”

The others glanced around the kitchen. “He was here for the meal,” Hunk said. “I don’t remember him leaving, but um - wow, how did we not notice he wasn’t here?”

“Well, it’s not like him being around is all that different from him  _not_  being around,” Lance huffed. “Dude barely even talks to us lately. He’s been quiet as a ghost ever since… uh…”

He trailed off. He didn’t need to finish the thought; the others all knew how it ended. Keith and been quiet and keeping to himself ever since Shiro had vanished. The disappearance of their leader had hit Keith harder than any of them, and although getting Voltron up and flying again after the lion reassignment had helped numb the blow, it hadn’t healed it.

Pidge cleared her throat and grabbed the bowl. “You know, he probably just slipped out and went to the training room. I can take this to him.”

“Of course,” Lance sighed. “When is he  _not_  in the training room? Not like I  _specifically asked_ that everyone stick around after dinner for a holiday announcement or anything.”

“Lance,” Pidge said, rolling her eyes.

“Because if that were the case, him leaving would just be  _rude_.”

“He probably just forgot,” Hunk said. “Not a big deal.”

“I’ll go ahead and take this if you’re done whining,” Pidge said. She picked up the bowl and shoved her chair back before sliding out of the kitchen.

Her thoughts were primarily occupied by her own Secret Santa assignment as she made her way to the training deck. Allura – she was fond of jewelry, wasn’t she? Pidge had collected a number of stones she’d thought were pretty on a cave-filled planet Voltron had visited a phoeb ago. She could definitely fashion some of them into a nice necklace or bracelet.

She smiled to herself. She had managed to get an easy pick for the gift exchange, it seemed.

She arrived at the training room, and, just as predicted, Keith was there, in the middle of a training exercise. His sword clanged off the training robot he was pitted against, and the sound reverberated throughout the room. It was still strange to see Keith’s familiar sword with a black handle, and with a black fuller running through the center of the blade, where once there had been red.

“End training session!” Pidge called out.

Keith whipped his head toward her as the bot froze up and dissipated into the air. “Pidge?” he said as he brought an arm up to wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his gloved hand. “What the hell was that?!”

“And a happy hello to you too,” Pidge said, strolling out to join him in the middle of the training deck.

Keith scowled, lowering his bayard to his side and letting it revert to its dormant form. “I was in the middle of training,” he snapped.

“Oh no,” Pidge said flatly. “I feel terrible for interrupting the only training session you’ve had in so, so long. If only there was some other time you had found to train, like every waking second of the day for weeks on end.”

Keith’s scowl deepened and he turned around. “Resume train- ”

“Hey, hey, I’m not done,” Pidge said, tapping Keith on the shoulder. She waited for him to reluctantly turn back around before she continued, “You missed out on Lance’s big announcement, so I’ll give you the gist of it. Hunk’s been trying to keep track of what Earth date it is, and by his estimations, it’s close to Christmas.”

Something flashed across Keith’s face, but it was quickly buried again as Keith nodded curtly and said, “Okay?”

“Anyway, Lance wants to do some holiday activities and stuff, and one of the ones we’re doing is Secret Santa. One name left in the bowl, and it’s for you.”

She held the bowl out, and Keith stared at it. “Uh…” he said.

“Oh my God, you’ve never done Secret Santa?” Pidge said. She shook her head, exasperated. “You pick a paper from the bowl, and whichever name is on the paper you pick is the person you have to make a present for.”

“There’s only one paper in the bowl,” Keith said, pointing with one finger.

“That’s because everyone else already picked theirs. Because they were all at the after-dinner announcement, you see.”

“… Oh. Sorry,” Keith mumbled.

Pidge shrugged. “It’s whatever, just take the last one.”

Keith obliged, picking up the paper and scanning the name on it before shoving it into his pocket. “All right. Is that all, then? I can go back to training?”

“Seriously? You can’t take a break for a while?”

“I just - I need to train.”

“You need to take a break. I mean look at you, you look like - ” Pidge cut herself short, biting down on her tongue. She had been about to say Keith looked like death warmed over, but considering where Keith’s mind had been for the last couple of phoebs, ‘death’ probably wasn’t the best word to use.

Not that it wasn’t true. All of the others had noticed Keith’s gradual signs of decay. He’d always been pale, but lately that paleness had taken on a tinge of gray. The bags and dark circles under his eyes had been growing deeper by the day, and there was a hollowness starting to develop in his cheeks that hadn’t been there before.

Grief was not a good look on Keith.

“I look like what?” he prompted, and Pidge blinked as she focused on him again.

“You look… sick,” she answered. “You doing okay?”

“I’m doing fine.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Keith crossed his arms. “Pidge, right now, I just want to train, all right? I’ll take a break when I need a break.”

“Are you sure? Because - ”

“I’m sure.”

Pidge sighed. There really was no talking to Keith. “Fine. By the way, Hunk’s got the kitchen on reserve for all of tomorrow afternoon for a massive group gingerbread-house-making session, so, you know…”

Keith nodded. “Got it.” They stood in silence for a few ticks before Keith turned away again, calling to the room at large, “Resume training session!”

A bot appeared on the deck, and Pidge hurried out of the way before either her or the bowl still in her hands could get in the middle of Keith’s battle. She glanced back at him before she left, to see him locked in combat with that exhausted determination that had as of late become his signature.

She shook her head as she returned to the hallway. If he had his way, he’d probably spend the entirety of the holidays stuck in that stupid training deck.

Pity whoever had gotten Keith as their Secret Santa.


	2. Chapter 2

“So,” Coran said as he examined the completed gingerbread houses. “This is what houses look like on Earth?”

Lance pulled a shingle off the roof of his gingerbread house to pop into his mouth before answering, “Well, I mean, most of them tend to be a little less, you know, covered in candy and icing.”

“Unless you’re living in the woods trying to lure children into your home to kill and eat them,” Pidge commented.

Coran furrowed his brow, turning to her in concern. “Does that… happen often, on Earth?”

“Yes.”

“She’s lying, Coran,” Hunk said hastily before glaring at Pidge. “Stop scaring Coran like that!”

“Well, I think they’re simply adorable,” Allura said, smiling at her own sloppily assembled gingerbread house. She tapped on the wafer chimney. “And you humans have a part of your house specifically dedicated to being set on fire? So quaint! If ever we get to visit Earth, one of you simply must let me watch you burn your house!”

“Allura,” Lance said, looking her steadily in the eye, “I would burn my entire neighborhood to the ground if you wanted me to.”

“I see Lance has settled on a phrase to put on his Valentines this year,” Pidge said.

“Valentines?” Allura asked.

“One holiday at a time, people,” Hunk said. He reached out to the table and started picking up the tubes of icing. “Is everyone finished with their houses? We can start cleaning up.”

The other murmured in confirmation and started rising from the table, gathering up their own extra candy decorations and utensils. “What are we gonna do with all this leftover gingerbread?” Pidge asked, gesturing toward the slabs of gingerbread walls and roof that were laid out in front of the sixth seat at the table, the one that had remained empty throughout the afternoon. “Wait and see if Keith wants to make his later, or…?”

Lance scoffed. “If he wanted to build a gingerbread house, he would have come and joined the rest of us. And if Keith doesn’t want to have fun, fine, whatever. But that doesn’t mean the gingerbread should go to waste.”

“You did say you told him we were building them today, right?” Hunk asked Pidge as Lance grabbed a slab of gingerbread from Keith’s spot and started nibbling eagerly on it.

Pidge nodded. “Yeah, course I told him. Don’t know why he didn’t come.”

“’Cause he’s  _Keith_ ,” Lance said through a mouthful of gingerbread. “Short of physically wrestling him down, carrying him into the room, and hog-tying him to keep from running off, I don’t think there’s any possible way to get him to actually spend time with the rest of us. The mighty lone wolf doesn’t take holidays.”

“Still,” Hunk said, picking up some gingerbread for himself. “If there was anything he’d be likely to join us for, I thought it would have been this. Shiro said Keith always had a major sweet tooth.”

“His loss,” Lance said with a shrug. “More importantly, for our next holiday activity, I’m thinking: Christmas caroling. We spend a day planet-hopping and singing Christmas songs at various intergalactic embassies.”

“Interesting idea,” Coran said slowly. “Although there’s a distinct possibility that some planets could interpret such a greeting as an act of war.”

“That’s a risk we’re just going to have to take. For the sake of Christmas spirit.”

Pidge cleared her throat. “If you two are going to get into a debate about this, could you do it somewhere else while the rest of us actually clean?”

The two of them obliged, bickering softly about the perceived aggressiveness of Christmas caroling as they left the kitchen, and the others resumed their cleaning.

* * *

Pidge didn’t see Keith until later that day, when she was laying out the place settings for dinner – it was her turn to set the table according to the chore calendar Hunk had created, much to her and Lance’s chagrin – and he came wandering in, the dark patches of sweat at his collar and under the sleeves of his tee shirt indicating that he’d just finished up yet another long session on the training deck.

He nodded to Pidge in greeting as he crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator, and Pidge clicked her tongue in irritation. Keith paused, hand halfway to the fridge’s handle, and turned to her, brow raised.

“Nice of you to finally show up,” Pidge said.

“Come again?” Keith said.

“The gingerbread house party today? Hunk was really looking forward to having that as a fun group bonding time.”

“… And?”

Pidge stared at him. “And? What do you mean ‘and’?  _And_  you weren’t there!”

“I know that,” Keith said, looking, if anything, more confused. “What’s the problem?”

“That  _is_  the problem!”

Keith just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, so Pidge continued. “How come you didn’t come to the gingerbread house party, hm?”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you a couple of days ago that we were going to be making gingerbread houses, and you never came. You just stayed in here and did your stupid training - the same thing you’re always doing, non-stop, and frankly you’re going to just implode from exhaustion at some point if you keep this up.” She crossed her arms. “So, what is it? Why didn’t you come to the gingerbread house thing?”

Keith looked back up at her, frowning in silence for a moment before he answered, “I… wasn’t invited.”

“What are you talking about? I invited you!”

“No, you - you told me about it, but you didn’t - ”

“Well, yeah,” Pidge said, rolling her eyes. “That was me inviting you. Why did you think I made a point to tell you about it if it wasn’t an invitation?”

“I just thought - ” He cut himself off, his face starting to redden. He turned away, opening the fridge, removing a bottle, and slamming the door shut. “Forget it.”

“No, seriously, what the hell did you think I was telling you for?”

Keith huffed out a breath. “Well, you said - you said the kitchen was reserved for the afternoon for the gingerbread house thing so I - I thought - I thought you meant, like, stay away from the kitchen, it’s taken.”

The glared that Pidge had been wearing softened into a puzzled frown. “Why would you think that? I did say it was a group thing, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but, I mean, the  _group_  is - you guys are the group, I didn’t - I didn’t think…”

“Keith,” Pidge said slowly, “Did you… think we wouldn’t have wanted you there?”

For a long moment, Keith was silent, his finger fidgeting on the cap of the bottle he had pulled from the fridge. Then, without a word, he set the bottle down onto the counter and turned away, striding out of the kitchen.

Pidge swore under her breath, dropping what remained of the cutlery she was laying out onto the middle of the table with a clatter before hurrying off after Keith. “Hey!” she called to him as she half-jogged to catch up to him. “Hey, assface, you can’t just leave in the middle of a conversation like that!”

“I forgot to shower,” Keith snapped at her, not breaking her stride.

“And, what, the castle will implode if you don’t shower right now?”

“Pidge – ”

“Seriously, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing’s going on with me, I just need to shower.”

“The hell you do,” Pidge growled. They turned the corner to the hallway with the paladins’ communal bathroom, and Pidge sprinted forward to stand in the doorway, feet planted and her hands on either side.

Keith leveled a glare at her when he caught up. “Move,” he said.

“No.”

“ _Pidge_.”

“I’m not moving until you tell me what the hell is the  _matter_ with you,” Pidge said. She leaned from side to side to block Keith off as he tried to slip past her. “Look, I know you’re in a mood and all because of the whole Shiro thing, and I get it, I  _do,_  if there’s anyone on this ship who would get it it’s me, but for the love of crap man, why don’t you at least make an  _effort?_ ”

“What the hell are you on about?!”

“I’m ‘on about’ the fact that you’ve got plenty of people in this castle to come to, and we’ve _tried_  to have group bonding times and all, but you just keep going off to be miserable all by yourself! And now you up and tell me that you’re avoiding us because we don’t  _want_  you around? Where the hell did you get that idea?”

Keith’s hands curled into fists at his side, his face going a deep shade of red. “Because you  _don’t_ want me around!” he snapped.

There was silence for a moment as Keith breathed in and out through clenched teeth, Pidge blinking uncertainly at him, as if not sure whether she’d heard him correctly. “What – Keith, of course we want you around!”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, we – ”

“No, Pidge, trust me, you don’t.” Keith sighed. “Look, it’s not – I don’t take it personally, really. I don’t. It’s a compatibility thing. People are fine with having me around when I’m with Shiro, because I guess sometimes we’ve wound up being sort of a package deal, but – but when it’s just me? Come on. I – I know I’m not exactly fun to be around, and I know I’m basically a lost cause when it comes to games and jokes and all, and you don’t have to – I mean, I don’t – it’s the holidays, the last thing you guys need is me bringing you down.”

“Keith, you – you wouldn’t be bringing us down.”

Keith shook his head. “You don’t have to do that, Pidge. It’s not like this is news to me, okay? I get it. Christmas comes every year, I’ve been through a bunch of them. I’ve had foster families try to fake it, try and have ‘Santa’ bring me some generic ‘toy for boy in this age range’ toy so they can pretend I’m part of it, but God, it was so much easier on everyone with those families who were just honest, who would just tell me, stay out of the way so the everybody else can actually enjoy themselves. At least then we knew where everyone stood.

“So you guys just go ahead and do your gingerbread houses and your gift exchanges and all, and I’ll just… I’ll stay out of the way. Okay? I’ve got a lot of training to do anyway. So, it works out better for everyone, you know?”

In Pidge’s stunned state after that declaration, Keith managed to shove his way past her. He draped the towel from his shoulders over the curtain rod and turned on the water so it could start heating up before turning away. Just has he was reaching for the hem of his shirt to start undressing, though, the water shut off. He turned around to see Pidge, her arm stretched out past the curtain and into the stall, staring at him with round eyes.

“Your – your foster families seriously said that to you?” she asked softly.

“… Some of them,” Keith answered. “I’m taking my shower, now, Pidge. Could you – ?”

“No,” Pidge said. “No, they were – they were wrong, Keith.”

“Pidge, could you just – ”

“I mean it. They were – you don’t need to stay out of the way, Keith. And we  _do_  want you here. I want you here.”

Keith said nothing, so Pidge sighed and grabbed him by the forearm. “Come on,” she said, turning around to start tugging him away from the bathroom. “There’s something I want to show you.”


	3. Chapter 3

In no time they had arrived at Pidge’s room, and she was shoving the door open and wading through the veritable junkyard that was her living quarters.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said as she brought Keith to the corner of her room. Two of her space caterpillars lay dozing on top of a lumpy grouping of shapes all covered by a sheet.

“Pidge, I’ve already seen your caterpillars,” Keith said. “What do they have to do with – ?”

“No, no, not them,” Pidge said. She poked at one of the caterpillars to wake them up, and once the little creatures had woken and floated off, she took hold of the sheet. “I wanted to show you  _this_.”

She ripped the sheet off, and Keith stared at the piles of junk underneath. He tilted his head and slowly asked, “Wait a minute, are those – ?”

“Yep,” Pidge said with a nod. “I’m proud to present: the Paladins of Vol-trash!”

Keith took a cautious step forward as he examined them. “So… what exactly are they?”

“Do you remember that mission a while back when we’d gone and rescued Allura from the Galra, and afterward we went through that corrupted wormhole and all got separated?”

“Yeah. That’s where you got the caterpillar things, right?”

Pidge nodded. “It is, yeah. I was on this nebula planet that basically seemed to be some sort of intergalactic junkyard, and it was just me and the caterpillars. It was… quiet. And I was there for a long time, felt much longer than it was, and I got – I got lonely.”

She plopped down onto her bed with a sigh before she continued, “I’m not very good at being lonely. I don’t handle it well. But usually there’s, like, some way to cope, you know? Like, I only ever had a couple of friends at a time at school growing up, if even, but even then I had clubs to focus on and Matt to come home to. And when Matt and my dad left for Kerberos, it was lonely at my house, but I still had Mom, and Bae Bae – my dog – to keep me company. And then at Garrison, I had classes to focus on, and then later I had Lance and Hunk. I still got lonely plenty, but it was easier to shake out of it.

“Then that stupid wormhole happened, and I was stranded on this strange planet with no one around and nothing to do but wait. And, well, it got to me. I just… I needed someone around. I didn’t want to be alone, I wanted – I wanted the people I cared about to be back with me. I wanted to have my family there.”

“Is this… me?” Keith interrupted. He had a hand stretched out, and was tracing a finger delicately around the rubber washer that made up one of Trash Keith’s scowling eyes.

“Well, yeah,” Pidge answered. “Like I said: I wanted my family.”

Keith straightened up and turned to her, his violet eyes wide, and he opened his mouth slightly, but seemed to be lost for words. So Pidge kept talking. “I really mean that, you know. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to get shot out into space with, and – and I care about this whole team. It’s become a second family to me. And that family includes you, Keith. You’re, like, the tough, stubborn, reckless emo brother that I never had and never knew I needed, but that I wouldn’t give up for the world.”

Keith turned back to face the Trash Keith. “I… didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know that I thought of you as family, or…?”

“Yeah. Yeah, basically. I just – ” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s… new. It’s a new feeling. I’m not really used to… I mean, ever since Dad died, the only person who I’ve ever thought of as ‘family’ was Shiro, and, well…”

He trailed off, and silence echoed in the room for several ticks before Pidge softly said, “You miss him. You miss him the way I miss Matt and Dad. And I get it. That’s – it’s a deep hurt. It’s agonizing. And I’m sorry it had to happen to you.”

“You too,” Keith said. He sighed. “You know, the year before Shiro left for Kerberos, he took me home with him to spend winter break with his family, and that was the only real Christmas I’d had since the ones with Dad when I was a kid. Only one where I really felt like… like I was welcome there, that it was okay for me to be celebrating. It, um, it kinda made the next year’s hurt that much more.”

“You were out in the desert at that point, weren’t you?” Pidge asked. “So, you spent Christmas alone?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Pidge snorted. “Nah, I’m gonna go ahead and be sorry anyway. Because that sucks, and it shouldn’t have happened. I mean it. You shouldn’t have had to spend Christmas alone. Hell, you shouldn’t have been alone  _at all_ , in the first place, but especially not for Christmas. And you don’t have to be alone, Keith. Not anymore. Not now.”

Keith was silent, eyes on the Trash Paladins, so Pidge went on. “I know how hard losing Shiro again must be for you, and I know it’s not something you’re just going to get over. But we’re all there for you. I’m sorry if you hadn’t seen it before, if we hadn’t made that clear to you, but we are. And I hate seeing you destroy yourself without Shiro around. We’ve all been worried about you. It’s like… it’s like when we lost Shiro, we started losing you too.”

“Oh.” Keith brought his arms up to cross them tightly over his chest. “I… I’m sorry. I, um, I hadn’t meant to worry anyone.”

Pidge stood from the bed and moved to lay a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, dude. This whole thing hit you hard, and, well, that’s fair. And, like, I’m not offering a cure-all for it or anything. But everyone on this castle would love to help you feel a little less lonely, if you’ll let us. And you’re always invited to everything we do as a group, okay? Because you’re part of the team. And that means you’re part of the family.”

“… Thank you, Pidge,” Keith said in practically a whisper.

Pidge patted his shoulder and stepped back. “And while we’re on the topic, you’ve always been welcome at our movie nights. That open invite was open to you too. I always just kind of assumed you didn’t want to come, but, um, you know.” She reached up to scratch at the back of her neck. “We’re doing one tonight, since, like, watching Christmas movies is tradition and everything. In the lounge at the twenty-two-varga mark. It’d be really cool if you came.”

“Thanks,” Keith said softly. “I’ll… keep the offer in mind.”

“Good.” Pidge smiled. “Now, go on and take your shower. You’re gonna stink up my room.”

Keith returned her grin with a slight upward twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You seem to have me confused with your dirty dishes,” he said, gesturing toward the haphazard stack of plates on her desk.

“Ugh, you sound like my mom.”

“No, no, just your responsible big brother who knows better than you.”

Pidge practically tossed him out the door.

* * *

She kept her eyes out as the group settled into their typical movie night arrangement that evening: her and Hunk on one couch - the space beside Hunk normally reserved for Shiro empty - Lance and Allura on the other, and Coran setting up the film with a pile of cushions on the floor ready and waiting for him. All were decked out in their sleepover attire, the paladins in their matching silky pajamas and lion slippers, and bowls were set out and filled with a puffy Altean grain that the team’s humans had deemed close enough to popcorn to work as the go-to movie night snack.

“Now,” Coran said as he finished setting up the old projector, “Altea doesn’t exactly have any equivalent festival to Earth’s ‘Christmas’, but Lance described the sorts of films that humans typically watch in celebration and I tried to find one that was on theme. I believe you mentioned that Christmas films tend to take place during times of cold weather?”

“That’s right,” Lance said with a nod.

“Excellent! Then I’m sure my selection will be perfectly suitable! We will be watching… well, the title is pun in Altean, but it would probably most closely translate to ‘Frozen Death’. It’s about a group of Altean explorers who become stranded on an icy planet and must face off against both the elements of the cold, and the fearsome Blizzard Worms that live beneath the ice and seek to devour them!”

The paladins stared at Coran in silence for a moment before Lance cleared his throat and said, “Uh, that sounds… very festive, Coran. Good pick.”

“Ah, this will be a treat,” Coran said. “Shall we go ahead and start?”

The others glanced around. “Should, uh, should we wait for Keith?” Hunk asked.

“If we wait for Keith,” said Lance, “We’re never going to get to watch the movie.”

“Yeah, but, Pidge said she was sure he was going to come to this one, right, Pidge?”

Pidge sighed. “I mean, I  _thought_ he was, but…” She trailed off and chewed at her bottom lip. She really thought she had gotten through to Keith earlier today, but, honestly, he was so difficult to read. “Go ahead and play the movie,” she mumbled.

Coran nodded and turned down the lights, and a holographic projection began to play as he settled into his spot on the floor. Pidge nestled herself deeper into the couch, trying to keep her focus on the movie.

They sat through the opening credits and the opening scene, an expositional, dialogue-heavy one that gave the paladins some good laughs whenever the castle’s translators were thrown by the film’s old audio and tossed some nonsense words into the mix. An action-laden scene played out next as the Alteans crashed onto the frozen planet, and in the quiet afterwards filled with wordless shots of wreckage and landscape, Pidge heard a throat clear behind her. She turned around and her brows shot up in surprise.

Keith stood in the lounge’s entryway, one hand on the frame, hovering anxiously like a student trying to figure out whether they had just wandered into the wrong classroom. He had fulfilled the dress code, wearing his red paladin pajamas and red lion slippers, a look that seemed utterly out of place on Keith but that delighted Pidge all the same.

“You made it!” she cried.

“Y-yeah,” Keith said. “Is, uh, is there still room for - ”

“Of course there is!” Pidge said. She jumped up and ran to take his hand and pulled him toward the couch. Keith followed her gracelessly, no doubt unused to walking in slippers considering that normally he didn’t even sleep without taking off those boots of his. “Hunk, budge up, Keith gets the middle,” she said, and Hunk obliged, smiling and patting the cushion after he vacated it.

“Good to have you, buddy,” he said as Keith cautiously lowered himself onto the couch.

“You guys done?” Lance asked. “You’re drowning out the movie.”

Pidge rolled her eyes as she plopped down by Keith’s side. “It’s not The Maltese Falcon, Lance, you’re not gonna lose track of the plot.”

“I’m not worried about the plot, I just think those two explorers seem to have a lot of romantic tension going on and I want to see where it goes,” Lance said, pointing to the holographic screen.

“They’re both gonna get eaten by giant worms, that’s where it’s going to go.”

“You’ve seen this before?” Coran asked.

Allura turned to shush them, and Pidge made a face at her before settling back in and resuming watching the movie.

After a few doboshes, she slowly leaned to the side and tentatively rested her head on Keith’s shoulder. Immediately Keith stiffened, and Pidge wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have done that, but he didn’t shrug her off or ask her to move, so she stayed. And it didn’t take long for Keith’s posture to relax, adjusting to her weight on him.

Pidge smiled and let herself melt into Keith so that she was more or less nestled against him, and Keith tilted his head to rest up against hers. Keith, she noticed, had just about the same build as Matt, and for quick moment, it was like being back home, staying up late on a weekend night to watch episode after episode of some TV show until they both fell asleep.

It was a cozy feeling. She wondered if it was one Keith ever had experienced before. Either way, it was one that left her feeling sleepy, and her eyes drifted shut long before she ever got the chance to learn whether those Blizzard Worms had managed to come out the victors.


	4. Chapter 4

Over the coming days, things were better regarding Keith. Not perfect, but better.

He still spent too much time on the training deck, and he still didn’t eat enough, and he still was too quiet when he joined the group to grease up an abandon series of hallways to demonstrate how sledding worked, or to make paper snowflakes and paper chains to decorate the castle.

But, quiet though he was, he was  _there_. He joined in on the activities without needing to be physically dragged, and once or twice Pidge even caught hom smiling.

And really, that was even more than she could have hoped for.

The night before the day that they had assigned to be their Christmas, Pidge pulled an all-nighter in one of the ship’s computer labs, trying to hone their radars in on a distant signal that seemed significant but not quite managing to calibrate them just the way she needed to.

She had conked out at some point during the night, and woken up with the imprints of button labels on her cheek from where she had wound up laying her head, and decided she may as well take a break for breakfast. So, with a yawn and a stretch, she got up and made her way to the kitchen.

Hunk was the only one there when she arrived, and he was busying himself drying a stack of recently-washed dishes on the counter. Pidge slipped past him to get into the fridge, pulling out a cup of what she recognized as an Altean snack that tasted like sort of an unexpectedly bland midpoint between yogurt and gelatin, and she nodded toward the dishes as she grabbed a spork and started digging in. “Guess I missed breakfast?” she asked.

“Yep,” Hunk answered. “And as a bonus, you missed lunch.”

“Seriously?”

“There’s leftovers, if you want those.”

“I’ll heat ‘em up later,” Pidge said. She raised a brow as Hunk turned, and she just now noticed the apron he was wearing. It was a spotless ivory-white, like new, and there was an elaborate embroidery on the front depicting the Yellow Lion mid-flight. “Where the heck did you get that?” she asked, pointing to it.

Hunk smiled down at the apron. “You like it? Coran gave it to me this morning. Made it himself. Turns out he was my Secret Santa.”

The bite of food in Pidge’s mouth went down the wrong pipe, leaving her coughing until Hunk thumped her on the back and she spat out, “Crap, that was today?!”

“Did you forget to make a present?” Hunk asked with a frown.

“No, no, but I forgot to leave the present out this morning! Damn it, Allura must think no one got her anything! I’m a terrible Santa!”

“Hey, hey, relax,” Hunk said. “I think Coran and I were the only ones who’ve already given out their presents this morning. You have the rest of the day.”

Pidge sighed in relief. “Oh, thank God. For a moment there, I thought – well, you know what I thought.” She set her food aside and dropped her spork into the sink. “I’m gonna go grab it now so I don’t forget.”

“Come back whenever you’re hungry,” Hunk said, waving her away.

Pidge hastened to her room, intending to grab the necklace she had made to go deliver it to Allura’s room. When she arrived and turned on the light, however, she found herself jumping back with a yelp at the sight of a humanoid shape sitting up on her bed.

Instinctively her hand darted to her side in search of her bayard, but at a second glance at the figure, she stopped, letting her hand go limp. In a stunned silence she stepped forward for a closer look.

The figure was around her own size. Legs made of old rubber tubing dangled over the side of the bed, leading up to a torso outfitted with green and white scrap paper assembled to resemble her usual shirt, with sporks sticking out of the paper sleeves like hands. An empty jug was fitted above the collar, topped with the overturned plumage of a large brown featherduster acting as hair. Pipe cleaner glasses covered bottlecap eyes, and a line of fruit stems arced across the face in a broad smile.

A tag was fitted to a tong on one of the sporks, but Pidge didn’t need to read it to know who her Secret Santa had been.

She snatched the necklace up from her desk, and pocketed it, reminding herself to drop it off soon. But there was something else she had to do first.

Keith’s room was in the next hallway over, and he had left his door unlocked, so it slid open when Pidge pressed the button outside it with its usual electronic hiss. Keith, towel slung over his shoulders post-training, because of  _course_  he had just come back from training, was sitting on the floor beside his bed, on which sat a long tray of red velvet cookies, with icing on them spelling out, one letter per cookie, MERRY CHRISTMAS EITH! The ‘K’ was currently in Keith’s hand, half-eaten.

Keith looked up as Pidge entered, and he gestured with a tilt of his head toward the cookies. “Do you want one?” he asked. Pidge didn’t say anything, so he continued. “Uh, Hunk made them. For the Secret Santa thing. I don’t know how he managed to make red velvet. Or how he knew I liked it – I think I mentioned it, like, once, in passing, but…”

“Hunk’s got a good memory for stuff like that,” Pidge said. “Keith, your… your present.”

“Mm-hm?”

“You made Trash Pidge.”

Keith nodded slightly, a hint of a smile playing out on his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I, uh… it’s just, when you – when you showed me the, uh, the Trash Paladins, I just thought – I mean, it kinda, it – it meant a lot, see, and I thought, you know, um, Trash Keith could use another friend, and – and it would make sense to have the whole trash family together, so, um…” He trailed off, his smile fading as he watched Pidge. “Is – is that okay? For a gift? I wasn’t sure – look, I can make something else if you don’t like – ”

He didn’t have time to finish the sentence before he was being tackle-hugged, Pidge having practically flown across the room and only narrowly avoiding squishing his cookies. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said, voice muffled as her face was pressed into Keith’s shoulder. “I love it. I love my Trash Pidge.”

Keith sagged in relief as he breathed out a sigh. “Oh. Good. Sorry, this is – this is my first time doing this sort of thing. A gift exchange, I mean.”

Pidge sat up, beaming at him. “Well, you should do them more often. You’re good at them.” She sat back onto the floor, letting her smile soften as she took him up on his earlier offer and took the exclamation-point cookie from the tray. “So you liked the Trash Keith? It meant that much to you?”

“Well, yeah,” Keith said. “Yeah, of course it did. It was – it’s like – ” He dropped his gaze to the cookie in his hands as he continued softly. “It’s a nice feeling, that someone actually, like… missed me. That’s never… that doesn’t happen, not really. Like, in the past, even when people say they’re going to keep in touch and stuff, they, um… I’ve just, like, never been _important_  enough to – I – and then you made that thing, and – and it was like, it was physical evidence that someone actually – that you – ”

His voice began to shudder, and Pidge rapidly shook her. “No, no, nuh-uh, you’re not allowed to start crying on me, Kogane. Because if you start crying, then empathy’s gonna happen and _I’m_  going to have no choice but to start crying, and then somewhere in the castle Coran’s feelings sense is gonna start tingling and _he’ll_  start crying, and it’s just going to be a big ugly mess, so don’t you  _dare_  – ”

“I’m not crying,” Keith said, right before he sniffled, and Pidge could see his watery eyes through his overlong bangs.

“Holy hell, Keith, you are the worst goddamn liar of all time,” Pidge mumbled. She pulled her glasses off to wipe at her own eyes before leaning back in to resume their earlier hug. “Still – Merry Christmas, Keith.”

“Merry Christmas, Pidge,” Keith whispered back.


End file.
